Distance Learning Tips from Castle Learning

Ideas to Minimize the Pitfalls of Remote Teaching

I want to share this great information from Castle Learning with you.  I had received it in an email and thought it would be good to share!

Imagine … one Thursday, Little League announces that on the following Monday, cricket would replace baseball and softball; and that participation is mandatory. The players, fans, coaches, and suppliers would be scrambling to acquire different equipment and learn the rules, strategies, and skills. Even the vocabulary would be different. Expecting such a monumental task would cause an uproar! That scenario is similar to what happened when education switched from in-person teaching to remote teaching in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As you would expect, everyone in education is experiencing some pitfalls as they pivot their instruction. Teachers are proving their willingness to learn and flexibility to adapt to their new roles. At Castle Learning, we want to support you as you discover the best way to teach in this format. We spoke with several teachers to see what is helping them. Pitfall: You Worry that Your Students are Not Getting Enough Guidance Students and families participating in distance learning due to the virus outbreak did not choose remote learning as the best fit for their family. It was suddenly thrust upon them, which makes the situation completely different from selecting distance learning. Families who choose distance learning often do so because a parent has the skills, time, and patience to assist the children with their education. Many parents during the pandemic are working and cannot monitor their children’s schoolwork. Other parents do not know how to help their children. Many children resent the parents’ attempts to teach. Ideas to Minimize the Impact: If you teach young children, you might want to devote time to teaching parents how to help them practice reading. You can also direct families to free literacy resources to help. It might relieve you that even though children are not getting the same academic rigor, they may still be learning essential skills. Children may learn practical skills such as cooking, sewing, and getting along with siblings. The abundance of unstructured time is allowing children to play, draw, sing, dance, and explore. These activities can be tremendously valuable for developing creativity and independence. Pitfall: You Miss your Students, and They Miss You The bond between students and teachers is powerful for engaging students and keeping them accountable for their learning. With only virtual contact, maintaining a relationship takes more effort. Ideas to Minimize the Impact: Try interacting with a few students individually or in small groups each day. Without other students around, you will be able to listen with undivided attention, which may feel more meaningful than you could do in-person. Some students will need extra attention because of their home life, personality, or academic needs. Ensure that these students and their families get a phone call regularly. Request co-workers that know the child to pitch in with making phone calls. Ask the child’s parents, or grandparents, for ideas. They often come up with creative solutions because they know the children in a different capacity. Pitfall: You Feel Overwhelmed with Emails You are probably getting an abundance of emails from stressed parents or students. Responding thoughtfully to each email takes time and patience. Ideas to Minimize the Impact: Complex ideas and emotional topics can get lost in translation, creating more problems than they solve. In the article, Five Strategies that Will Inspire Your Students to Learn in a Virtual Classroom, Dr. Bruce A. Johnson suggests that you should have emotional or complicated conversations over the phone or in a virtual meeting, rather than by email. Sometimes the sheer volume of emails makes it hard to respond individually. For non-private and non-urgent emails, combine your responses into a single email. Save all your emails on your computer so you can copy and paste the same words when appropriate. Everyone makes mistakes when they write, especially when they are tired, stressed, or emotional. After writing an email, wait an hour or more before you send it, and then proofread the email for clarity, tone, and typos. Take advantage of wait features in the email settings that allow you to quickly “un-send” an email. Pitfall: Finding the Right Lessons is Laborious Many of your favorite lessons probably required physical materials. Now you must teach using mainly digital materials. Suddenly, not only are you choosing lessons, you are converting documents, evaluating educational apps, creating videos, and learning about software compatibility and copyright laws.  Ideas to Minimize the Impact: No single teacher can evaluate and create all the digital resources needed. Collaborate with teammates to share the load. Some staff may love creating instructional videos, while others might be great at finding the perfect lesson. Consider trying our digital resources. You can choose from hundreds of pre-made lessons and assessments. Our software makes it easy to create original digital learning content. You can integrate everything with other platforms and learning management systems such as Google Classroom, Canvas, or Schoology.  A Final Note on Distance Learning Technology has advanced considerably since the Boston Gazette advertised one of the first correspondence courses in 1728. Lesson delivery and feedback shortened from weeks to almost instantaneous. The technology is immensely helpful, but be patient with yourself as you learn to use it effectively. We hope you will return to in-person teaching in the fall. However, if schools remain closed, you will be more prepared and have more tools than before. Thank you for the work you continue to do to support student learning. Castle Software, Inc   1501 Reedsdale Street/Suite 5000    Pittsburgh, PA  15233

Happy Birthday World Wide Web! March 12th

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, World Wide Web!

Today (March 12th) is the World Wide Web's 31st birthday.  For a little history click the link below.


https://webfoundation.org/about/vision/history-of-the-web/

Great Educational Technology Resource

Practical Ed Tech by Richard Byrne

This is a great website to check out for information about the use of everything technology for your classroom.  You will see great tutorials and ideas on how to use Google and other technology.  There is also a blog you can sign up for to receive email updates of tidbits for different uses of the many technology tools.  Enjoy!

His website link:
https://practicaledtech.com

An example of one of the how-tos on the website:
https://practicaledtech.com/2020/01/27/nine-good-sources-of-public-domain-creative-commons-audio/

- This one is about nine good options for finding audio files that are either in the public domain or have a Creative Commons license.  Finding classroom friendly audio is great especially now that Google has incorporated the ability for users to include audio within slides.  You also need to be aware that using copyrighted music and other audio is illegal.  For example, If you post a video to YouTube with copyrighted audio YouTube will take it down from the site. 

“How to Use Wikipedia Wisely”

This video will show how to teach students the correct way to use Wikipedia not just totally avoid it.  It is very interesting!

FBI warns against using free WiFi networks while traveling

Image: Paul Hanaoka

In its weekly tech advice column, the FBI warned holiday travelers about the danger of using free WiFi networks while traveling -- such as those found in hotels or airports. The advice is an old one, given by many others in the past, but one that needs repeating.
"Don't allow your phone, computer, tablet, or other devices to auto-connect to a free wireless network while you are away from home," the FBI said.
"This is an open invitation for bad actors to access your device. They then can load malware, steal your passwords and PINs, or even take remote control of your contacts and camera," the agency said.

Read the full article by Catalin Cimpanu for Zero Day click the link below:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/fbi-warns-against-using-free-wifi-networks-while-traveling

Happy Holidays and The Very Best New Year!

G. Suite Update - If you use Gmail

What’s changing

You can now attach emails to other emails in Gmail without downloading them first.

Click below to see how to do it!
Send emails as attachments in Gmail

Podcasts and Audio Resources with Discovery Education

This discussion came up on the Discovery Education Network and I thought I would share it.  A link to the full discussion thread shown below.

Podcasts and Audio Resources
Educators know more than anyone that we must keep learning.  The genius of podcasts is that they are both personal and professional-- blending narratives with advice needed to be better at our jobs and just better people.  And the best part? You can listen to them anywhere. I walk and listen to podcasts often. Be careful!  I walked into a ladder while on my phone this past Spring and needed stitches! 
Do you use podcasts in your teaching and learning?  Have you created one?  What are your favorites?  In this discussion, provide us with some links to your favorite podcasts and let us know why you love them!

Discovery Education Podcast Resources
Filter your search results to audio files then podcasts and access over 550 podcasts.

Stuff You Should Know: Podcast series providing informational conversations between Chuck Bryant and Josh Clark. They explore the history, facts, misconceptions and opinions about a variety of topics- primarily science-based but also relevant for social studies and health classrooms. These podcasts allow students to dive in and learn more about a topic they’re interested in. Students could do additional research on the topic and then share back with the class.
Stuff You Missed in History Class: Tracy Wilson and Holly Frey team up for conversations about the greatest and strangest things that you missed in history class. The stories are an engaging way for students to learn the untold stories that add details, perspective and depth to the historical time periods they’re studying. These episodes can also be a great way for students to connect historical events to present-day issues.
Weston Woods Audio Books:  A variety of K-5 titles allow students access to stories that may be out of their reading level. These resources model strong reading fluency, set the tone and allow students to explore the tone and mood of a story without struggling through difficult words. Audio files are great for using in stations- you might ask your students to illustrate a scene from the story or pause partway through and ask them to write the ending.

Some Personal Favorites
Kathy Schrocks Podcasts Revisited
Radiolab-An extraordinary podcast about curiosity in all subject areas
Stuff You Should Know- Informational Podcast utilizing Content drawn from all subject areas and all interests.
Truth for Teachers -Frequently ranked in the top ten K-12 podcasts on iTunes, Angela Watson's covers all aspects of the daily life of teachers, speaking words of encouragement and truth to educators to inspire you for the week ahead in the classroom.
Ted Talks Education-all things education and learning from some of the brightest and most innovative minds in the industry!

------------------------------
Robert Corbin, PhD
Director-Global STEM Initiatives
Discovery Education
M: (704) 619-3801
RCorbin@discoveryEd.com
@STEMancipate

Link to the full thread:  https://den.discoveryeducation.com/communities/community-home/digestviewer/viewthread?GroupId=79&MessageKey=5e00bddc-e4c1-4289-b968-5b582d144392&CommunityKey=680139af-e292-40cb-8426-f6f1e28fcec7&tab=digestviewer&ReturnUrl=%2fcommunities%2fcommunity-home%2fdigestviewer%3fcommunitykey%3d680139af-e292-40cb-8426-f6f1e28fcec7%26tab%3ddigestviewer

NEW - Enhance presentations in Slides with audio

Add Audio in Google Slides!

Google is adding the ability for users to embed MP3 and WAV audio files from Drive into Slides.

"We have listened to your requests and are adding audio files as additional media types in Slides. We know that adding audio clips can bring your presentations to the next level. Short audio clips can grab attention, while longer ones can set the tone for the entire presentation."

• To insert an audio file into Slides:
• Insert > Audio and select from your audio files in Drive 
• Hover over the icon to see playback controls

Once the audio file is inserted, you can find more audio settings by clicking “Format options” in the toolbar. From there, you can set playback options, volume, and looping. You can also hide the audio icon, or replace it with an image of your choice.

Note: The ability to add an audio file into Slides is currently only available on desktop, though audio will play on all platforms.

For more information go to this link:  https://support.google.com/docs/answer/97447#Audio

Learn about the Birth of Democracy with Google Expeditions

Google Expedition - The Birth of Democracy in Germany

GoogleArts & Culture partnered with Hambach Castle to create a GoogleExpedition about the birth of democracy in Germany. Explore The Hambach Festival in the History of Democracy, in both English & German.

Learn about the Birth of Democracy with Google Expeditions   

For more information about Google Expeditions click below:
https://edu.google.com/products/vr-ar/expeditions/?modal_active=none\

Ten Google Search Tips for Students

Image is borrowed from https://www.gizbot.com/

Twelve years ago I had a student come up to me in the library and declare, “Mr. Byrne, Google has nothing on this!” Her topic was the Civil War. It was then that I realized my students needed a bit more guidance on how to conduct online research. In the years since that incident in the library, I have spent a lot of time developing search lessons for students to help them become better at search. All of the lessons that I’ve created incorporate at least one of the following ten tips.

Click the link below to check out this post on 
Practical Ed Tech By Richard Byrne

https://practicaledtech.com/2019/09/16/ten-google-search-tips-for-students/

Happy 21st Birthday Google!

Google's founders were graduate students at Stanford when they founded the company.

GOOGLE

In Friday’s Google Doodle, Google celebrates its own 21st birthday. Google is old enough to drink, but what is a “google”, anyway? It’s a very, very large number:

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

That’s a one, followed by a hundred zeroes, which is what you get if you multiply ten times ten and keep multiplying by ten until you’ve done it a hundred times. In scientific notation, the mathematical shorthand for dealing with staggeringly large numbers, a googol is written 10100. To give you a sense of how big a googol is, it’s about 20 orders of magnitude bigger than the number of subatomic particles in the universe, which is “only” 1080. It’s also about the lifespan of a supermassive black hole like the one at the center of our galaxy.

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin borrowed the term for their company in 1998, to suggest the unfathomably large number of results their new search engine could provide. Page and Brin were obviously exaggerating a bit, and they also took a bit of poetic license with the spelling.

And if you’ve always Google’s name sounded like a nonsense word made up by a small child, that’s because it actually was: then-nine-year-old Milton Sirotta, whose mathematician uncle Edward Kasner asked him to pin a name on the enormous number for a book Kasner was working on: Mathematics and the Imagination, published in 1940. Kasner died in 1955, and his nephew Sirotta died in 1981, 17 years too early to see the word he’d invented become the name of a California startup that grew into the 17th largest company in the world (under the umbrella of Alphabet).

Kasner’s great-niece told the Baltimore Sun in 2004 that she wasn’t sure what her uncle would think about Google’s use of the word. “Obviously it's only brought attention to the name; it hasn't brought attention to his work, so I'm not quite certain what he'd think,” she said. “They're not using the concepts, but just capitalizing on the name.” She added that she had written to the company in 1998 to introduce herself and the family, but received no response.

Other words for include ten duotrigintillion, ten thousand sexdecillion, and ten sexdecilliard. So today, you can celebrate the fact that when you want information, you don’t have to “ten duotrigintillion” for it.

Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website.

Kiona N. Smith

Locked Mode Has Arrived for Google Forms

Here's how you do it!

Locked Mode has arrived for Google Forms.  This means that you can assign a Google Form as a quiz and it will not let students open up new tabs or applications during the quiz. As with all new technology, there will be issues, so I would not try this immediately with a real quiz.  For example, I'm not sure if students can open up a new window while in Locked Mode, so there are a few kinks to work out.

To enable Locked Mode:

Create a Google Form

Click Settings (the gear icon) on the top-right Select Quizzes Click the slider for "Make this a quiz"

Check the box for "Turn on locked mode"

Thanks to Mike Milillo for this contribution!

Google’s YouTube to pay $170 million penalty for collecting data on kids

WASHINGTON, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Google, which is owned by Alphabet Inc, and its YouTube video service will pay $170 million to settle allegations that it broke federal law by collecting personal information about children, the Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday.

YouTube had been accused of tracking viewers of children’s channels using cookies without parental consent and using those cookies to deliver millions of dollars in targeted advertisements to those viewers.

The settlement with the FTC and the New York attorney general’s office, which will receive $34 million, is the largest since a law banning collecting information about children under age 13 came into effect in 1998. The law was revised in 2013 to include “cookies,” used to track a person’s internet viewing habits.

To read more go to Google’s YouTube to pay $170 million

by Diane Bartz Editing by Nick Zieminski 

PUBLISHED WED, SEP 4 2019  10:04 AM EDT

Ten Ways to Use Google Earth in Your Classroom – It’s Not Just for Social Studies

Last week’s launch of a new version of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? on Google Earth seems to have sparked a renewed interest in Google Earth. People often only associate Google Earth with social studies lessons. While it is a fantastic tool for social studies lessons, it can also be used in science, math, and language arts. Here are ten ways for students to use Google Earth in your classroom. 

* Check out this link from the website by Richard Byrne Practical EdTech.com

Online Stopwatch or Countdown Timer

Stopwatch

Countdown Timer

www.online-stopwatch.com

Whenever you need a stopwatch or countdown timer for use in your class this site is great.  It works well using it on an interactive whiteboard so the whole class can see.

Find setlists for your favorite artists! (Really Cool)

Find a setlist of a concert and play the songs!

I went to see Billy Joel last week at Madison Square Garden.  The next day I did a search to find the setlist of what songs he performed and  I found this website.  It not only shows a list of the songs he played but next to each song name is a link so you can play the song.  If you like to go to concerts or just like certain performers you have to check this out!  Enjoy!

https://www.setlist.fm

29 Best Add-ons for Google Docs

Image from JR Raphael, Computerworld | JUNE 28, 2017 07:30 AMPT

There are few requirements for a word processor - you should be able to type and edit the text, and then save, print or share the finished document.

30+ years later, some new features and functions have been implemented and introduced.

Google Docs offers only basic features to format a document, and it is bundled with world-class collaboration tools. The application is ideal for co-editing simple documents in groups. But once you need to do something more than just editing, you go back to MS Word and its features.

That is where add-ons come in. There are more than three hundred tools that will help you:

• create documents faster;
• edit the text;
• add graphics, formulas, and signatures;
• publish texts in a way you want.

Get more great information by clicking on the link below.

https://www.templatemonster.com/blog/best-add-ons-google-docs/#title1

No, I didn't call you

Borrowed from Phil Madina's weather report of May 15, 2019, 9:54 AM

Being in the witness protection program and a technophile I am fascinated and at the same time terrified of the privacy issues of our tech. I’m fascinated at the promise of seamless coordination of our digital lives.

Siri: what’s my next appointment?

-where’s the nearest pizza place?

I get in my car on Sunday morning and my phone asks me: are you going to the bagel shop again? It will take 7 minutes.

Kind of useful stuff.

But then there’s the creep factor where it oversteps its boundaries. Ads pop up in your phone for Dunkin Donuts as you drive past it. Hair Club for Men send you emails a few days after you “accidentally do a couple of searches for info on thinning hair”. Your phone tracks your location constantly and logs where you stop. The companies promise that they won’t use this data for evil purposes but…

Recently, I had a creepy tech intrusion. I teacher I work with showed me a screenshot of an incoming robo-call from our district. It said, “631 730-4900 Possibly Phil Medina”. I’ve gotten those calls and thought little of it since I have that number listed in my phone contacts as my work number. So I occasionally get calls from myself. (definitely helps on days when I’m lonely and no one else calls). But now I had a colleague that I’ve never exchanged phone numbers with, in any way, have my name pop up in her phone with my work number.

Well, after some investigating it appears that this was not an isolated incident and many people have gotten robo-calls tagged with my name. It appears that these weather reports are the culprit! I used to sign each report including my school and contact number here (having now changed it to a number at school that will never call you). If you read my emails on your phone, your phone noticed the number next to my name and it made that connection.

Just for curiosity, if you have gotten any fake calls from me I’d be interested to hear.

With each new innovation in tech, we need to be careful about how integrated our electronics are. As I said, being in the witness protection program (hence the menial job and low profile that I keep) I am particularly aware where my data goes. Facial recognition in Facebook has caught cheaters in pictures with their paramours. Linked Microsoft accounts between home computers and work computers have unexpectedly put home photos on work desktops. I’m sure that GPS patterns have popped up messages suggesting the best route and travel time to somewhere that someone should not have been while someone else was looking at their phone. I recently read an article about a woman who was checked onto a flight without showing her boarding pass simply based on facial recognition, without her permission or knowledge, with a camera at the desk that she didn’t notice. Her identity was confirmed using a Homeland Security database that a private company (the airline) had access to.

 Yes, it’s a bit paranoid. But the flow of information needs to be understood by the user (you) and you need to be able to control what is used and how. It is good practice to occasionally go through your phone and check the privacy settings and which apps have access to things like the camera, microphone, contacts, and GPS positions. And if anything strange pops up such as “looks like you’re heading to Cabo Fresh” you should look into why your phone is doing that and change it if you are not comfortable with it.

Thanks for sharing Phil!

Time Saving Keyboard Shortcuts on the Chromebook

* Control (Ctrl) W to Close the tab

* Control (Ctrl) L to highlight the URL

* Control (Ctrl) 2 jumps to the second tab

* Control (Ctrl) T opens a new tab

* Control (Ctrl) K creates a hyperlink

* Control (Ctrl) Shift T reopens a closed tab

* Control (Ctrl) Z undo

PLEASE share any keyboard shortcuts you use regularly on the Chromebook below in the comment section!